The Colossal Failure of the World's Longest Sea Bridge

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So it's not a technical or engineering failure, it's just a bureaucratic failure.

The worst problem is that both immigration checkpoints in Hong Kong and Macau are based on the very edge of the cities, while ferry terminals are located at the heart of both cities, if you include the travel time to the immigration checkpoints at both sides, the trip will take longer than going by ferry.

A trip on this bridge is a fantastic experience.

Pre-pandemic, I flew over this bridge a couple of times on the approach to Hong Kong. Beautiful bridge, but I only needed my two hands to count the number of vehicles I saw.

It just reminds me how blessed we are in the EU to have the visa free Schengen area which allows us to travel between all participating countries without any obstacles and delays.

The ferry service between HK and Macau was very efficient. Multiple ferries went all day and not only quickly but on time.

If you've ever been to Hong Kong, you'll know that only the super rich own private cars. Space is at such a premium in Hong Kong, that owning a parking spot is seen often as an extreme expense that no one would want to own. So a bridge that relies on car traffic out of Hong Kong, is just ridiculous.

It seems incredible that such an adventurous engineering accomplishment should have been undertaken before the the consequent problems had been thrashed out.

It seems that a lot of consequences and potential problems were overlooked at the beginning. That's why making lists is so important. This reminds of surgeons who have left surgical instruments inside patients simply because they thought they were too smart to forget anything. Nurses solved the problem by creating checklists.

They should have made a rail bridge or perhaps a combination bridge, road and rail

I was absolutely astounded to see this giant bridge in the middle of the ocean as I approached the airport during my one and only trip to Hong Kong in 2018!

$18 billion is not bad. A project of that scope here in the US would cost 5-10 times more.

It’s not a failure bc it’s construction wasn’t economically but political it was a way to show and remind HK and Macao residents that they are attached to the mainland. It’s more symbolic then anything and in this regard the bridge was a total success

The Hong Kong -Zhuhai-Macau bridge is a huge project . This bridge was opened in February 2018. In 2019-2020 there was riots and chaos in Hong Kong in an attempted colour revolution aimed at the Mainland Central Government. Then the thrird factor was the 2020 - 2022 disruptions of the COVID_19 pandemic across China, and the world.. The Covid-19 caused serious shut down of large parts of China including Hong Kong and Macau with travel bans only eased in February -May 2023. We are still not able to freely travel to China in June 2023 for reasons not unexpected in a recovery . All our company'd procurements had been deferred for 4 years today. In planning manufacturing investment and many serious business takes years, and then there is the testing, verification and acceptance. Today in June 2023 is quite wrong and pre-mature to assert the the Hong Kong -Zhuhai-Macau cross -sea bridge is a "colossal failure" . It has not yet begun to fight. A little more time please. In consideration of the limited space here your analysis is good nevertheless . Many thanks.

If globeEX calls this mega project a "colossal failure" then let's have more of them!!! Meanwhile in the USA's Silicon Valley they still can't get a high speed rail link going after decades of promising; and dozens if not hundreds of US bridges across the country are thought to be at risk of collapse.This bridge linking Macau and Hong Kong is an infrastructure marvel and a phenomenal engineering feat. Well done to the planners, engineers and government officers who helped make this project go from start to finish. Economic payback for projects of this scale doesn't happen in a few short years from opening but is recouped over a far longer time horizon and the Chinese are well aware of this. In the years to come its true value will come to be realised.

It is hardly a colossal failure. This is for the future when the region becomes a 100+ million super mega city.

Macau drives on the left. When I visited there, back in the early 1980s and crossed into China, the bus had to cross over to the right as it crossed the border

Well this bridge would have been a failure if this was designed with people in mind. But this is strategic investment which allows the PLA to easily reach Hong Kong in times of unrest. From the military standpoint this bridge serves its prupose well. I don't see many channels covering this from a different POV.

near double cost over 10 years is not an example of those costs "spiraling out of control". London, Millenium dome: initial budget 100 million GBP, final cost: ~ 900 million GBP, THAT'S an example of an 'out of control' cost blowout.